Few things say Badass the way a well groomed handlebar mustache does. Well, unless you're a woman. There's just something about a man who has almost half of his body weight compiled on his upper lip that screams "I'm all outta gum". A 'stache also works as an easy and quick way for an established character to Take a Level In Badass. It may also turn them into a Chick Magnet.

Not to be confused with the Beard of Evil, although a Badass Beard may also be present. The Badass Mustache is smaller and more defined and does not inherently bring with it villainous intent.

Not all mustaches are Badass; there is a fine line between this and the Porn Stache. A toothbrush mustache—also known as a Hitler mustache—just looks silly (there's a reason Charlie Chaplin used it before Hitler).

Contents

Black Cat Detective - Black Cat has Badass Whiskers. When Hei Mao twists his whisker like a pimp, you know shit is about to go down. It is an allegorical mustache.

Whitebeard from One Piece has a stache so badass many fans assume he'll use it as a sword.

His mustache is so badass it counts as a beard.

Actually this is due to a translation, where beard and mustache are the same word in Japanese.

There's also the late Pirate King Gold Roger. And Vista of the Whitebeard pirates. And Zeff, Sanji's mentor. In fact it seems like a disproportionately high number of high level pirates have badass mustaches.

Paul Moriyama in Keroro Gunsou. The 'stache is particularly touched upon in the English dub, but even in the original form, his Badass status was apparent.

Dragonball Z - While the mustached Hercule/Mr. Satan is far less powerful than the main cast, he is still absurdly strong for an ordinary human. Vegeta also grows a mustache for a little while as well, but most people [1] tend to think he is more badass without it.

Tenchi Muyo!: Katsuhito Masaki/Yosho is an old mustached man who can still kick ass. Nobuyuki Masaki, while less combat-savvy, is also mustached and does help out with the occasional threat as well. Not surprisingly, future Tenchi continues the tradition by growing a mustache himself.

Badass facial hair is a longstanding tradition of Jurai royalty: his great-grandfather Azusa sports an epic Badass Beard in addition to his 'stache, as does the latter's father-in-law, UtsutsumiKamikiJurai.

G Gundam - Just like everything else about him, Master Asia's mustache is completely awesome. Subverted with Gentle Chapman, who used to be badass but is plagued by illnesses and old age when we get to see him. And he later Came Back Wrong.

Turn a Gundam: Fans (and detractors), and even people in the series, often attribute this to the eponymous mecha itself, and considering how it's the strongest of all Gundams, it fits the "Badass" part pretty well.

The Turn A was designed by the famous American mecha designer Syd Mead, and represented a major break with the Gundam design traditions, which is why it was controversial in the first place. One of the key differences is that the characteristic Gundam's "V-fins", that officially house the various antennas and comm equipment and are usually placed on a forehead crest, were moved much lower by Mead, resembling the enormous pointed 'stache a la Salvador Dali.

Omni-Man in Invincible, who comes from an entire race of mustachio'd supermen. Apparently they don't even grow beards, just mustaches. One in-disguise Viltrumite reveals himself by pulling off a fake beard (but the mustache was real).

Asterix - Asterix has a fantastic mustache, yellow, droopy, and above all badass. This could apply to all the Britons from 'Asterix in Britanny' : they all have beautiful mustaches and are all badasses. Most of the Gauls have mustaches. Of course, most of the Gauls are badasses. There's their huge, muscular blacksmith, their chief who rarely travels on foot but instead on shield, their bard, who can, as of recent books, summon rain and storms by striking only a few chords... it's easier to count the folks who don't have these.

In X-Men Cyclops' father, Corsair, is a badass Space Pirate with a seriously badass mustache. Cyclops worked out that Corsair was his father when he had to go without shaving for a couple of weeks, and realized that his new moustache was exactly as badass as Corsair's.

Mack "Clownface" Delgado from Body Bags has one, only seen when he removes his clownface mask.

In Gotham Central, Sergeant "Sarge" Davies has a nice, thick mustache, and is very proud of it and all relevant facial hair.

Detective Crowe: "People don't trust a mustache anymore. It's just a cultural thing. Don't ask me to explain it."Sarge Davies: "What about Teddy Roosevelt? He had a handlebar mustache."Crowe: "Different era, Sarge. You telling me you'd vote for some guy with a handlebar mustache in this day and age?"Sarge: "Hell, yes. Anyone puts that kind of attention into a 'stache has just got class. I don't care what year it is."

Rod of the film Hot Rod wears a fake mustache when performing stunts in order to make himself manlier. He claims to have some kind of hormonal imbalance that prevents him from growing a real one, but at the end of the movie he's starting to grow one for real anyway.

The Addams Family - Gomez Addams. His mustache is a harbinger of boundless badassery.

Many characters in Alatriste, including the eponymous, for historical reasons: 17th-century Spaniards fashioned mustaches in general, and more than a few of the characters are badass, ambiguous, mercenaries. Beard of Evil is more common in clearly evil characters.

Delahoy from The Unusuals counts. He once leapt from the roof of one building onto the balcony of another to break up an assault. Of course, his darker personality also contributed to the jump...

LazyTown - Sportacus is a subversion of the long, pointy, "villainous" mustache, as he is a hero, and an all-around good guy. Robbie Rotten suspects his mustache is the reason everyone listens to him in the episode "Sportafake."

Richard on Friends. Chandler in particular seems to resent this and makes fun of it whenever possible. He's been accused of doing so because he's proven unable to grow a good mustache.

Battlestar Galactica: In a slight subversion, Bill Adama from grew a mustache after the Fleet settled on New Caprica, pointedly to show off how lax and laid-back he'd gotten. However, he retained the mustache while leading the extremely badass assault on New Caprica to rescue humanity from Cylon occupation, so perhaps it was more in the vein of an extremely long-lived playoff beard.

In a recent Top Gear episode, Clarkson, after spending some time in a "mood room" and deciding True Art Is Incomprehensible, decided their prototype eco-car "Geoff" needed a huge moustache. He duly got one.

Firefly - Though Shepherd Book's hair is the stuff of legends, his mustache is undeniably badass, as well. Simon jokes about growing the villainous equivalent after the events of "Ariel", but sadly the series ended before we could find out what he'd look like if he went through with it. Wash's own 'stache, as seen in flashback, was probably trying for this, but he couldn't pull it off.

In The Good Guys, detective Dan Stark (played by Bradley Whitford) has one of these, which he addresses as "Stache" in an early episode. When he talks to his former partner at the end of a later episode, he asks him, since he's retired, "why you still got that bitchin' stache?"

Italian Spiderman from the webseries of the same name has a detachable, explosive mustache.

Mustaches actually seem to be status symbols, and signs of literal badassery in the Mario universe. The mustache-bearing bosses of Super Mario 64 DS pride themselves on their mustaches, and the "Stache" stat from the Mario and Luigi games earns store discounts.

While it can never be as iconic as the Mario Bros.'s, AdmiralBobbery's mustache is easily in the running for the most badass in the series.

Sonic the Hedgehog - Dr. Eggman's signature 'stache. So does his psychotic double Eggman Nega, and even his elderly grandfather Professor Gerald Robotnik has a droopy grey one. Mustaches, like baldness and insanity, seem to run in the Robotnik family.

Interestingly enough, Maria is the only member of the Robotnik family so far seen to possess NONE of those traits!

Mega Man - Dr. Wily, who plays a similar role (with a similar mustache) to Eggman's.

From Modern Warfare 2 we have General Shepherd, who manages to single-handedly take on two highly-trained opponents in unarmed combat (and very nearly win), as well as being the Big Bad responsible for nearly all the major events that occur within the game, including the invasion of the United States.

Super Robot Wars - Kai Kitamura is your only pilot with facial hair in the games he appears in, and an epitome of Badass Normal. There's also Axel Almer's Soulgain, which sports a steel mustache. In fact, when it stranded into the OG world for the first time, it's nicknamed Mustache Man. And yes, Axel and Soulgain are just about as Badass as they get.

Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete - Toyed with and gender-reversed(!) very briefly in During the anime cutscene where the girls are changing Lucia's outfit, one of the costumes has a gigantic, fantastic mustache. It is markedly more badass than the other costumes Lucia tries on during the sequence, but the mustache falls off. Lucia may have been more Badass with the mustache on, but the actual chosen outfit was probably for the better.

Solid Snake in MetalGearSolid 4. A Badass Mustache is part and parcel of the "Big Boss" heritage, as demonstrated previously by the original (of course) and Solidus. Liquid didn't have one because he wasn't a true Boss. Revolver Ocelot isn't eligible for Bosshood, but he has one anyway, because he's just that awesome.

Oda Nobunaga in pretty much any game series he's been in, ever. Which, since he had one in Real Life, makes sense.

In Battalion Wars 2, a handlebar mustache is a matter of regulation among Anglo Isles veteran infantry, and by gum do they wear it with pride (though it's noted that a bazooka veteran should be careful to not grow his mustache longer than 4 1/4 inches or it's likely to be singed by his weapon's exhaust).

Victor "Sully" Sullivan from Uncharted 2. His moustache is so badass that protagonist Nathan Drake rates it in his journal's list of scary things.

The Soldier gained a miscellaneous item that gives him a similar 'stache with chops.

Fire Emblem has several examples, such as Tauroneo and Moulder. Oifey, his mustache is the reason he's the first Jeigan character to actually still be a good character at the end of the game making all future generations of Jeigans follow his example. And as Phee shows its popular with the ladies.

Mike Haggar of Final Fight. Mayor of Metro City, who personally wipes out the entire criminal element with his fists, dropkicks, suplexes, and Spinning Pile Drivers. He is said to weigh over 120 kg, and over half of it is estimated to be body hair.

Fable The third offering in particular. The various protagonists almost all boast some truly magnificent specimens. Major Swift comes to mind, as does Boulder and the indefatigable Sir Walter Beck. The Prince can as well, should you desire him too. When you sign the agreement to make Major Swift the army commander in the future, it actually says, "With a mustache like that on your side? How can you lose?" Ironic that he gets killed....

Dan McNinja had his mustache revealed in a fight to determine who would be the next leader of the Ninja Guild. Even though he needed his son's help to win the fight, and he made it clear that he intended to kill his opponent, which was against the rules, he was instantly made new guild leader, and cut a hole in his mask so that his mustache would always be on display.

In the case of Gordito Delgado, badassery actually caused mustache growth: he grew a thick, stereotypical bandito mustache, fully waxed, at age 12, in seconds, through sheer force of will, when a social worker threatened to take away his father's guns. Naturally, the social worker backed down.

Social Worker: I'm so sorry... here you are... sir.

Frans Rayner is apparently incapable of growing any facial hair above the jawline, but he believes so strongly in this trope that he is convinced that lack of mustache is the only thing keeping him from taking over America, and therefore tries to steal Dan's, and later Gordito's.

8BitTheater's Wizard Who Did It Sarda has one. Notably, he grew it as a means to pass time when he stranded himself in the beginning of the universe. He killed a few weeks with it (Only several billion years to go...)

Family Guy parodied this with Peter trying to invoke the trope by growing a mustache. Naturally, at least some innate badassness is required for the stache to actually work, and Peter does manage to rescue a guy from a burning building while wearing it. It gets burnt off in the attempt. While mourning his loss of facial hair, he ate so many hamburgers that he had a stroke.

Chef Mung Daal in Chowder, pretty much played straight there as he always boasts about how it helps him with the ladies. In one episode, he claims "This mustache proves I'm great!"

In The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Mindy convinces SpongeBob and Patrick that they are men by giving them seaweed moustaches. They spend half a minute admiring them before setting on their way, only to run into paid assassin Dennis, who rips off the fake moustaches and shows them what a "real" moustache looks like by willing one to grow instantly on his face.

An entire episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes centered around Jimmy wanting to grow a mustache because of this group. The Colonel Gnoman wears one normally.

In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, Twilight magics a big-ol' mustache onto Spike's face in "Boast Busters". He thinks it makes him look pretty cool, and can't wait to show it off to Rarity... who, it turns out, isn't impressed.

A later episode, "Call of the Cutie", features a briefly shown male pony with not only very manly chest hair but also one of the most epic mustache/sideburn combos ever to be shown in a cartoon.

In the "Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" episode a duo of cider-making ponies known as the "Flim Flam Brothers" appear in Ponyville, one of which (most likely Flam) has exponentially more swagger due to the presence of a mighty red moustache.

Many Celts, especially the early ones, had mustaches, often David Crosby esque walrus types, rather than full beards. And they were undoubtedly badass.

In the British military forces, a moustache is normal for senior NCO ranks, it's sometimes called the 'fourth stripe'. Firemen, policemen and so on also use moustaches as a sign of time served.

Numerous Iranian peoples, especially during the Parthian and Sassanian era, wore either long luxurious beards or mustaches. And considering their empire went toe to toe with Rome, and often won (and never were conquered by them), not to mention pretty much inventing the concept of heavy cavalry, they certainly count.

Chinggis Khan, hands down. Though all artwork depicting him was created after his death, most agree on his mustache, a pretty much ubiquitous trait of nomads, especially the Mongols. He was so badass he even makes this look awesome.

Perhaps the best known trait of several Baseball Hall of Fame relief pitchers, including Dennis Eckersly, Rollie Fingers, and Goose Gossage.

Tom Selleck.

Sam Elliott.

Steve Prefontaine

Lord Kitchener has the archetypal WWI officer mustache, made famous though this popular British WWI recruitment poster

5-time Jeopardy! champion Frank Spangenberg, who was at one point, the show's biggest 1-day winner, as well as the biggest money winner, and this was before the dollar values was doubled. In fact, when his winnings are adjusted to present values, he's still the show's biggest winner.

Robin Olds, Vietnam War fighting ace, had an seriously awesome 'stache. Unfortunately, he was forced to shave upon returning to the US.

Olds is famous in the Air Force for being the seriously old school style of Badass fighter pilot, being a triple ace, that is to say, he scored enough kills to become an ace three times, the first two times in World War Two and becoming an ace for the third time while leading the Eighth Tactical Fighter Wing in Vietnam.[3]

In modern times, American airmen honor Robin Olds by growing mustaches during Mustache March, to whatever extent their superiors (and more importantly, their wives and girlfriends) will let them get away with it.

Dallas Stoudenmire, El Paso city marshal, had a rockin mustache.

Hulk Hogan has the greatest handle bar mustache in the world. It's a "horseshoe" mustache.

Joe Nameth had a great mustache before he shaved it for a commercial.

Da Coach himself, Mike Ditka. Ditka could wear pink hair and a tutu and make it look totally badass.

Polish General and Dictator Józef Piłsudski [1] And in his younger days, too.[2]

Vercingetorix, the Gaulish chieftain who briefly united the many tribes of Gaul in one last attempt to thwart Caesar's invasion. Badass enough to surrender by riding right up on his horse to where Caesar was, facing the end with dignity. If Julius Caesar is to be believed, all of the Britons had mustaches. Given that in the work that he mentions this he's also trying to portray them as a nation of Barbarian Heros to make himself look all the more badass for defeating them, this probably counts as this trope.

In medieval Japan warlords and generals often grew a moustache to look more fierce and badass. Many of them (including Toyotomi Hideyoshi) wore fake moustaches if their own facial hair wasn't impressive enough.